


Fall the Wrong Way Round

by GreyMichaela



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bad BDSM Etiquette, Biting, Character Development, Happy Ending, Hate Sex, I'm writing this as a fan of both teams btw, M/M, Nolan is a Pittsburgh Penguin, Rough Sex, Under-negotiated Kink, and it shows, groundhog day vibes, neither of them knows what they're doing, turns out writing Nolan and Sid bickering is way more fun than expected
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-21
Updated: 2021-02-22
Packaged: 2021-03-12 11:56:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 15,651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28884990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GreyMichaela/pseuds/GreyMichaela
Summary: “I think he needs to go to the hospital,” Sid tells the nurse, who nods briskly and turns for a radio. “Nolan,” Sid continues. “Can you hear me?”“Of course I can hear you,” Nolan says through gritted teeth. “I hit my head, I’m notdeaf. Why am I wearing a fuckingPenguinsjersey?”Sid speaks slowly, as if Nolan has brain damage. “Because you’re a Penguin, Nolan.”Nolan stares at him. There’s no way Sid said what Nolan heard.“I think I need to go to a hospital,” he finally says.
Relationships: (exes), Nico Hischier/Nolan Patrick, Sidney Crosby/Evgeni Malkin, Travis Konecny/Nolan Patrick
Comments: 120
Kudos: 433





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello cats and kittens, didja miss me? I've been poking at this piece for awhile, and at first it was going to be just a fun romp - "what if Patty was actually a Penguin but everything else was the same" - but lol somewhere in there it took a hard left turn into a study on character development and how to be a better person. The original idea was ticklefighthockey's on Tumblr, who graciously gave me permission to run with it.
> 
> As usual, I'll aim to update every couple of days, but I can't guarantee anything, since my day job takes a toll and I have original novels to write as well. 
> 
> Title taken from Amber, by Koethe. 
> 
> Possible tw: Nolan is not out in his actual world. He experiences some pretty strong panic about being out and accepted. No self-hate, just some struggles coming to terms with things.

“Nolan!”

There are rough hands on him, voices blurring together in a haze. Fear and fury and concern come through, but he can’t make out words over the ringing in his ears and the roar of the crowd.

Somehow he makes it to his hands and knees, shaking his head to clear it. The hands help him up, back onto his feet, and turn him in the direction of the tunnel.

He’s maybe halfway there when his knees buckle and he goes down hard, blackness closing over him before he hits the ice.

Someone’s talking when he comes to. The voice sounds vaguely familiar, but Nolan doesn’t quite recognize it. He feels like he should. He rolls his head, paper crackling. 

“Be still,” someone says, and puts a hand on his shoulder. 

Nolan’s head feels like it’s caught in a vise, pain radiating out and down the side of his neck. He manages to pry his eyes open anyway.

He’s in a small room with a nurse by his head, her hand on his shoulder. She takes a penlight from her pocket and leans forward to inspect his pupils. Nolan lets her, wincing through the glare, and sags gratefully when she turns the light off.

“Pupils are normal and reacting evenly,” she says to someone behind her.

“I’m fine,” Nolan manages. He tries to push himself to one elbow, but the nurse holds him down with one hand and no effort. “I gotta go,” he insists. “The _game.”_

“The game’s over,” that familiar voice from earlier says, and Nolan rolls his head on the pillow to look at the speaker. He’s still having trouble focusing, and it takes a minute of blinking for the blurry image at the foot of his bed to resolve into—

“What the _fuck_ are you doing here?” Nolan spits, and Sidney Crosby’s eyebrows arch up.

“I’m here because I’m worried about you.” He sounds stiff, a little offended almost.

“Why the fuck would you be worried about me?” Nolan shakes the nurse’s hand off and hauls himself upright, moving slowly as dizziness swamps him. “Where’s Claude? Raff? Where’s TK?”

Sid’s eyebrows are nearly in his hairline. “Why would there be any Flyers here, Patty?”

“Don’t call me that,” Nolan snaps. “You don’t get to—” Sid’s question suddenly registers. “Wait, what?” He looks down before Sid can answer. Down at his bright yellow jersey, the hated Penguins logo front and center on his chest. He looks back up at Sid, wearing the exact same thing, and horror prickles his scalp. “What?” he whispers.

“I think he needs to go to the hospital,” Sid tells the nurse, who nods briskly and turns for a radio. “Nolan,” Sid continues. “Can you hear me?”

“Of course I can hear you,” Nolan says through gritted teeth. “I hit my head, I’m not _deaf._ Why am I wearing a fucking _Penguins_ jersey?”

Sid speaks slowly, as if Nolan has brain damage. “Because you’re a Penguin, Nolan.”

Nolan stares at him. There’s no way Sid said what Nolan heard.

“I think I need to go to a hospital,” he finally says.

The doctors pronounce him fine, after round after endless round of tests. He’s been poked and prodded until he feels like a pincushion, but finally he’s released with a stern warning to take some over the counter medicine for his headache and make sure he gets plenty of rest and fluids.

He’s given a stack of folded clothes and doesn’t pay any attention to what they are beyond dragging them on before he stumbles out into the waiting room of a hospital he doesn’t recognize and Sidney fucking Crosby stands up from the chair in the corner where he’s clearly been lurking.

Nolan physically recoils. “For _fuck’s_ sake.”

Sid’s mouth twists like he’s tasted something sour. “Really not sure where the animosity is coming from right now,” he says, “but I’m here to take you home.” He’s changed into street clothes, a plain ballcap tugged low over his dark curls.

“I’m fine,” Nolan says, and stalks past him out the sliding doors.

Sid follows, because of course he does, and then nearly runs into him when Nolan stops dead on the sidewalk. 

The side of the building says UPMC PRESBYTERIAN SHADYSIDE. Nolan turns in a circle, Sid staring at him as he goes.

“This is a Pittsburgh hospital,” he finally says.

“Yes,” Sid says. “Because we’re in Pittsburgh. Where we live. Jesus, Patty—sorry, _Nolan,_ are you sure you’re okay? Maybe we should take you back in for more tests.”

“I don’t live in Pittsburgh,” Nolan says. Desperation is creeping up his throat and he can’t quite get a full breath. “I don’t—I live in Philly, I _don’t live here.”_ He spins in a circle again but _nothing_ is familiar, nothing’s _right,_ and he’s choking on the panic now, an anvil on his chest.

Sid grabs his arm and pushes him into a sitting position on the curb. “Head between your knees,” he orders sharply. “Deep, slow breaths. Count to seven on the inhale, five on the exhale. Don’t think about _anything_ but your counting. Breathe. One, two, three—”

Nolan obeys, his thoughts scattering like breadcrumbs on water, fragmenting when he tries to reach for them. He breathes in and out to the sound of Sid’s voice counting, and slowly, so slowly, the panic recedes, until he’s left clutching his knees on the grimy sidewalk and feeling like an idiot. It takes him a minute to realize Sid’s got a hand on his shoulder, grounding him and probably keeping him from falling over. He’s too tired to shrug it away.

“What’s happening,” he whispers.

Sid squeezes his shoulder. “Why don’t we talk in my car? And then I’ll take you wherever you want to go.”

Somehow Nolan finds himself on his feet, stumbling after Sid’s bowlegged figure to his car, which he’s apparently parked what feels like a mile away.

“Christ,” Nolan pants, “you couldn’t have parked closer?”

Sid gives him a reproving look. “The only spots open were handicapped or VIP. I’m neither.”

“You’re Sidney fucking Crosby,” Nolan points out. “I think they’d make an exception.”

Sid doesn’t answer. He just keeps walking, and Nolan groans and follows.

Finally, they make it to his car, a modest 4x4 that doesn’t stand out in any way, and Sid unlocks it. Nolan pretty much collapses inside, exhausted far beyond reason, as Sid slides into the driver’s seat.

“How’s your head?” he asks.

“Hurts.”

Sid sighs. “What year is it, Nolan?”

“2021,” Nolan says reluctantly.

Apparently this is the right answer. “And what year were you drafted?”

“2017. Obviously.”

“Tone down the bitchiness just a tad, if you don’t mind.” Sid’s voice is sharp and Nolan tries to glare at him but his head still hurts too much. “Where did you play before you were drafted?”

“Brandon Wheat Kings,” Nolan says through his teeth. “Am I passing?”

“So far.” Sid drums his fingers on the steering wheel. “Who drafted you?”

“Philadelphia Flyers,” Nolan growls. “Now can I go or are you kidnapping me?”

“Nolan James Patrick,” Sid says carefully. “Born September 19, 1998. Drafted second overall by the Pittsburgh Penguins in 2017.”

Nolan goes very still. “No.” 

“You weren’t able to attend development camp because you were recovering from abdominal surgery,” Sid continues as if he hadn’t heard. “But you made your NHL debut in the Penguins at Sharks game on October 4th, 2017.”

Nolan shakes his head. He can’t feel his face. “No,” he repeats. “That was the _Flyers_ at Sharks.”

“You got your first point in your third game, and then your very next game you got your first goal.”

“Yes.” Nolan feels like he’s talking to a wall. _“With the Flyers.”_

“With the Penguins,” Sid says quietly. His eyes are very dark in the dim car. “You’re a Pittsburgh Penguin, Nolan, and you have been for three years.” 

Nolan would very much like to pass out, he decides. Maybe when he wakes up, this whole thing will have been a stupid hallucination and TK will be complaining because Nolan hasn’t answered his texts.

Unfortunately, his brain does not cooperate. He remains very conscious as Sid puts the car in gear and drives out of the parking lot.

“Where are we going?” he finally manages.

“You played a hard game. You’ll feel better once you eat,” Sid says, and pulls into a drive-through. He orders about a hundred burgers and hands the entire bag to Nolan, who grabs the first one off the top and digs in. 

Sid clears his throat and Nolan looks at him blankly.

“May I have one?” Sid says mildly.

Nolan can feel the flush heating his cheeks. “Sorry,” he mumbles through his mouthful, and hands it over. 

Sid finds a quiet grocery store and parks well out in the back. They eat in silence, and Nolan hates that he does feel better after, less spacey and floating and more grounded. 

He balls up the trash to give his hands something to do, tucking it back into the bag. Beside him, Sid wraps up his own trash and sets it in the bag as well, careful not to touch Nolan.

“Can I show you something?” he finally says.

Nolan shifts in his seat. He wants to go _home,_ he doesn’t want to be stuck in a car with Sidney fucking Crosby. He wants to check his phone and talk to TK and Kevin and feel _normal_ again. 

“When we’re done, I promise I really will take you wherever you want to go,” Sid says, and he sounds completely sincere. “Even if it’s to the airport so you can book a flight to Philly.”

Nolan slumps with a sigh. What’s another hour or so? “Fine,” he mutters, crossing his arms.

“So kind,” Sid says dryly, and puts the car in gear.

They don’t talk as they navigate the streets of Pittsburgh. Nolan had never really thought much about Pittsburgh before he got drafted by the Flyers, and then he’d hated it on principle, but he’s unbalanced enough right now that he has to admit the city has a charm of its own. Not that it’s a patch on Philly, of course.

He’s not expecting Sid to pull into the driveway of a brownstone and park.

“What are we doing here?” he asks.

“You’ll see,” Sid says, getting out.

Nolan follows. “Is this where you live? Did you really kidnap me and take you to your house? What are you going to do, torture me until I tell you everything I know about the Flyers?”

Sid’s eyebrows climb his forehead. “I’m not—” He sighs. “It’s not my house.”

“Well, whose is it then?”

Sid climbs the steps, Nolan close behind him. At the top, he looks expectantly at Nolan, who stares just as expectantly right back. Nolan feels only a little triumphant when Sid breaks first and gestures at him.

“Check your pockets.”

Nolan digs in his front pockets and unearths a phone he doesn’t recognize and a keyring with only a few keys on it. 

“Well, open the door,” Sid says.

Nolan glares at him and then switches his attention to the keys. One’s pretty obviously a car key, another for a mailbox, and the third—it slides smoothly into the lock and the bolt flips. Nolan stares, mouth open, as the door swings inward.

There’s an alarm system blinking green on the wall, and Sid gives Nolan that expectant look again. 

“How the fuck should I know what it is?” Nolan snaps, and Sid rolls his eyes and turns to disarm it with a few quick taps of his finger. 

“Good thing I housesat for you last year,” he says. “Come on.”

Nolan ignores that and follows him into a spacious living room as Sid flicks on the lights. The room is carpeted in a lush cream shag, with brown leather furniture that looks well-worn and comfortable. There are pictures on the walls, and Nolan drifts closer to examine them.

There he is, his arm slung over Madison’s shoulders as they beam at the camera. Nolan swings to look at Sid, who just gestures silently back at the pictures.

Nolan and a group of men he barely notices, his attention taken by the bright yellow jersey he’s wearing and the huge smile on his face.

He shakes his head. “No.” In spite of himself, he moves on to the next picture. He’s wearing the jersey again, a Penguins snapback on his head and holding a stick as he stares at the camera.

A picture of him embracing someone—he can’t tell who, all he can see are blond curls—on the ice, his head tipped back in a triumphant laugh, wearing that _horrible_ yellow jersey.

The next picture is a framed newspaper article, and Nolan leans in to read it.

 _NOLAN PATRICK’S FIRST GOAL AS A PITTSBURGH PENGUIN,_ it says under an unsmiling photo of him.

Nolan’s knees give out and he sits down hard on the couch.

“Breathe,” Sid says, crouching next to him.

“Fuck off,” Nolan says automatically, and drops his face into his hands, rocking back and forth. “This isn’t happening, it _can’t_ be happening. I’m dreaming. I’m gonna wake up any minute.” He drops his hands and pinches his forearm hard. _“Ow.”_

“What’s the last thing you remember from before the hit?” Sid asks, and he sounds so gentle and sympathetic that Nolan wants to punch him.

“Playing,” he mumbles. “The game tonight—”

Sid makes an encouraging noise and Nolan bristles.

“We were… losing,” he finally admits.

“And by we you mean…”

“The Flyers,” Nolan snaps, glaring at him again.

Sid seems unfazed. “Go on.”

“Someone hit me, I don’t know who. Rang my bell. And then I woke up in a nightmare.” He twitches suddenly, remembering the phone in his pocket. “TK.”

Sid’s eyebrows wing upward again and Nolan’s seriously about to give into temptation and punch him for it but he’s also busy digging the phone back out.

“You’ll see,” he says, thumbing it open. It unlocks with his thumbprint and Nolan makes a triumphant noise. “I have so many pictures of me and TK. And the others, of course.”

“Show me, then,” Sid says. He stands from his crouch to sit next to Nolan on the couch. 

“I will,” Nolan mutters. He’s having a hard time finding the pictures folder, but he finally locates and taps it. “You’ll see,” he repeats, touching a folder randomly. It opens and Nolan stares in disbelief at the picture of him, a wide smile on his face, with his arm around a madly grinning Jake Guentzel. It’s obvious Nolan took the picture himself, from the way it’s angled.

Nolan swipes to the next picture. It’s Geno, grumpy and half-dressed in the locker room, hair standing up in every direction. 

“No, no, _no,”_ Nolan mumbles, and swipes again. Sid sitting next to Jake, their heads together over dinner at a restaurant Nolan doesn’t recognize.

He keeps thumbing through, praying desperately that _something_ will shift and the pictures will be the ones he knows, the ones he _remembers_ taking. The one of TK napping on Nolan’s couch, a hole in one of his socks. Or Kevin and TK wrestling—Nolan had gotten a video of that, it had been so funny and honestly impressive, the way TK had managed to hold his own, but it’s not there, it’s not in any of the folders.

He closes the photos and switches to his address book. He hits the T first. 

_Brandon Tanev_

“What the fuck.”

Nolan hits G for Giroux. _Please be there, please be there, please make my world make sense again—_

_Geno_

_Jake Guentzel_

The phone slips from nerveless fingers and bounces on the carpet.

“Head between your knees,” Sid says, but this time Nolan knocks his hand away with a snarl.

“Don’t fucking _touch_ me,” he hisses, lurching to his feet. “This isn’t _happening._ I’m a fucking _Flyer_ , I am _not a Penguin!”_

Sid sits very still, and Nolan wants to lash out against the sympathy in his eyes. He spins and kicks the couch instead. It hurts like fuck but he hides the reaction as Sid stands.

“Look, I don’t pretend to know what’s going on,” he says. “You seem very… sure that you’re actually a Flyer.”

“I _am,”_ Nolan snaps. “I’m a Flyer, Claude Giroux is my captain, Carter’s our goalie, and TK is my winger _and_ best friend.”

“Nolan,” Sid says very carefully. “You and Travis Konecny are… what’s the best way to put this? Mortal enemies.”

“Bullshit.”

Sid’s expression doesn’t change. “Who do you think knocked you into the boards so hard?”


	2. Chapter 2

Turns out Nolan is too exhausted from the hit, the headache, and the previous panic attack to have another. He picks up the unfamiliar phone and shoves it back in his pocket. Sid hadn’t said that, and Nolan hadn’t heard it. It wasn’t possible.

“You might as well go,” he tells Sid, and he knows he sounds like an ungrateful ass but he also doesn’t really care. 

But Sid refuses to leave him alone no matter how much Nolan snarls at him. “You hit your head, you’re disoriented, and I don’t think you should be on your own. So I’m just gonna keep you company for a while longer.”

Nolan leaves him in the living room because it’s easier than arguing with a brick wall, and stomps up the stairs. He finds a large master bedroom with more pictures on the walls, of him and his Winnipeg friends, a framed piece showing the setting sun over the pond out behind his parents’ house. Nolan feels like he’s been punched in the stomach. He’s seen that view thousands of times over the years, taken his dad’s boat out on the pond and paddled around aimlessly for hours doing nothing but soaking up the sun and letting his fingers trail through the water.

He can hear noises downstairs, Sid’s voice, and he creeps to the top of the stairs to listen, not even remotely ashamed of himself.

“—here tonight,” Sid is saying. “I’m worried about him. He’s acting… odd.”

Nolan scowls.  _ You try being catapulted into an alternate dimension, _ he thinks mulishly.  _ See how  _ normal _ you act. _

“I know,” Sid says, and his voice softens. “I’ll be home in the morning. Yeah.”

In spite of everything, Nolan can’t help wondering who he’s talking to. Not that he’s spent a lot of time thinking about it, but he’d always assumed Sid was single. 

Sid steps into view at the bottom of the stairs and Nolan scrambles backward so fast he loses his balance and falls on his ass. Flat on his back, he glares at the ceiling and wonders who he pissed off in a past life. He definitely hears a muffled snicker from below and that just makes him glare harder. 

“I’m gonna sleep on your couch,” Sid calls. “How’s your head?”

Nolan considers not answering. There’s no sound from Sid but somehow Nolan knows he hasn’t gone away. Finally he heaves a sigh. 

“Better,” he says grudgingly.

“Good” is all Sid says, and his footsteps recede.

After a while, Nolan’s back begins to hurt and he rolls reluctantly to his feet. He also needs to use the bathroom, so he goes back to the master bedroom on a hunch that it’s an ensuite. Sure enough. His favorite shaving cream is beside the sink, the soap TK buys for him in the shower. Nolan can never remember the brand, but he loves the way it smells even if he’d die before admitting it.

When he’s done, he washes his hands and wipes them absently on the towel. His phone buzzes in his pocket and he jerks. When he pulls it out, a name he doesn’t recognize is on the display.

Rocky:  _ Seriously? _

Nolan kicks off his shoes and sits down on the bed. He’s pretty sure there’s no one on the Penguins named Rocky.  _ Who is this? _

The reply is swift.  _ Funny. _

Nolan shrugs and crawls under the covers. The phone buzzes in his hand as he’s getting comfortable.

_ Thougt u were tougher thn that. _

So Rocky must have been at the game, or at least watching it. The typing bubble pops up again. 

_ U promised to suck my dick this time :(, _ Rocky sends, and Nolan stops breathing.

Who the  _ fuck _ is this? No one in his life—his  _ actual _ life—knows he’s not straight. He works hard at the persona, perfected the art of casual interest in girls and absolutely no reaction to guys  _ years _ ago. Not even TK knows, although Nolan’s thought more than once about telling him, usually when they’re drunk or they’ve been up most of the night playing video games and they’re half-asleep leaning against each other on Nolan’s couch, the game menu revolving slowly on the screen and TK’s hair brushing Nolan’s nose.

He’s thought about it, of course he has. Thought about leaning in and kissing him, finding out what TK tastes like,  _ feels _ like under his mouth.

But he’s never done it. It’s not worth it. TK  _ is _ straight. He’s had several girlfriends in the years Nolan’s known him and he’s never so much as glanced at another guy. Nolan’s gaydar may not be the best but TK has literally  _ never _ reacted to the sight of a hot dude. He only talks about girls, looks at girls,  _ dates _ girls. Guys aren’t something that would even occur to him as an option. 

It’s not worth fucking up a perfectly good friendship just to scratch an itch.

He locks the phone and shoves it under the pillow without answering.

When he wakes up the next morning, he’s in a bad mood before his eyes are even open. He’d  _ hoped _ this whole thing would be gone when he woke up, just a stupid hallucination somehow, but everything is distressingly real. His head still hurts but it’s nowhere near as bad, which seems to be the only bright spot. He can smell eggs frying. He wants to  _ punch _ something.

He stubs his toe on the lip of the shower, an inch higher than it should be. He can’t figure out the controls, and first it’s too hot and then freezing cold. He finally gets a reasonable middle ground, but the smell of his soap when it lathers up just makes him think of TK, and that makes him angry all over again. 

Halfway down the stairs, it occurs to him that if there’s food being cooked, Sid will still be there, and somehow that makes him perk up slightly. At the very least, he’ll be able to irritate the shit out of someone he’s hated on principle for the past three years.

Only Sid’s not alone in the kitchen. Nolan stops dead just inside the door at the sight of Geno slouched at the bar, cradling a cup of coffee in both huge hands. He looks barely awake, hair rumpled and on end, sleep wrinkles on his cheek, and Nolan feels both eyebrows climbing his forehead.

“The fuck—did you  _ sleep _ here?” he demands.

Geno blinks drowsily but it’s Sid who answers, still at the stove. “Of course he did,” he says calmly as he flips an egg. 

Nolan stares at Geno, who still doesn’t even appear awake. “You were that worried about me?” he finally asks.

He doesn’t miss the quick glance Sid shoots at Geno, who doesn’t seem to have even registered the conversation.

“He  _ is _ an alternate,” Sid says. “Of course he’s worried about you.”

“Well, I’m fine,” Nolan snaps, dragging his irritation back into place. “You can both leave.”

“When we’re ready,” Sid says, and slides the egg onto a plate as Geno drops his head onto his forearms. “How’s your head?”

Nolan is getting very tired of that question. “If I said I’m completely pain-free would you believe me and go the fuck away?”

“Probably not. Come sit down.” Sid sounds completely serene and Nolan snarls but obeys, dropping onto a stool as gracelessly as possible. His grand plan to annoy Sid seems to be backfiring, who doesn’t appear to even notice Nolan’s bad manners. He just slides a plate across the counter. It’s piled high with eggs, toast, sausage, and fresh fucking fruit. 

“I’m not hungry,” Nolan says just as his stomach growls so loudly it makes Geno jerk upright, asking something in Russian.

Sid’s lips twitch and he turns back to the stove.

Nolan scowls at his back and shoves a piece of pineapple in his mouth. 

“Oh, call your mom,” Sid says over his shoulder. “She was worried about you after that hit. I told her you were okay but she wants to hear it from you.”

_ Fuck. _ He should have already done that. He takes his plate in the living room and eats the fruit with his fingers while dialing his mom’s number.

“Hi honey!” she says. “How are you feeling this morning?”

Nolan swallows a chunk of apple. “Hi Mom. Sorry I didn’t call earlier.”

She dismisses that. “How’s your head?”

Turns out the question is still annoying even when it’s his mother asking. Nolan sighs. “It’s fine. Barely a headache now.”

“Sid says you were acting… odd, after the hit?” His mother’s voice lilts up. “Are you feeling more yourself?”

This is actually an excellent opportunity to try to figure out what the fuck is going on, Nolan realizes, sitting up.

“Mom, have I ever—did I ever talk about playing for the Flyers?”

His mother laughs harder than he expects at that, until Nolan puts the phone on speaker so he can eat while she gets it out of her system. 

“You, with the  _ Flyers,” _ she finally manages, a faint wheeze in her voice. “Where on earth would you even get such an idea?”

“It’s just a question,” Nolan snaps. 

“Well you didn’t,” she says. “I’m sure you would have gone to them if they’d drafted you, but of course they didn’t. Are you unhappy with the Pens, Nolan? Do you need to talk about something?”

“No,” Nolan says hastily. The last thing he wants to do is talk about his  _ feelings. _ “I was just… curious. I had a weird dream or something. I don’t know. Made me think about sh—stuff.”

His mother hums. “Well, let me know if you change your mind.”

They talk a few more minutes and finally hang up, with an admonishment from her to not  _ only _ call when he’s been injured.

Sid appears right after Nolan puts the phone down.

“Practice today. You should probably sit it out.”

Nolan bristles. “I’m fine.”

“Sully would have my head if I let you skate injured,” Sid says. He’s wearing socks but not shoes, his dress pants from the night before and a white T-shirt. He didn’t have anything to change into, Nolan realizes, and stuffs down the unexpected pang of guilt. 

“You didn’t have to stay,” he mutters.

“We’ve been over this,” Sid says. He sounds tired, and the guilt rears its head again. Nolan strangles it ruthlessly. He will  _ not _ feel bad about a fucking  _ Penguin, _ goddammit. “Anyway, I’d like you to come with me to practice anyway, so the doctors can look you over again, make sure you’re clear to play tomorrow.” He pauses. “Unless you’re going to Philadelphia?”

Nolan considers. He’s tempted, honestly. He should book a flight right now. Drive to his apartment building. Bang on TK’s door and make this whole thing go away. The second he sees TK, his world is going to fix itself. He’s not sure how he knows, but he just  _ knows. _ TK will remember him, he’ll know him, and things will go back to the way they were.

“Or,” Sid says, “you can wait until we go to Philly on Friday, since we’re playing them again then.”

Nolan looks up. Sid’s not looking at him, busy folding the blanket he’d unearthed from somewhere. There’s no sign of Geno—maybe he’s still asleep in the kitchen. Apparently mornings don’t agree with him.

“That way we’ll be there and we’ll have your back if things don’t—go as you hope,” Sid continues, still not looking at him.

Nolan wants to lash out, tell him just how fucking hard up he’d have to be to need the  _ Penguins’ _ support, but he keeps his mouth shut. The truth is, having some backup isn’t the worst idea. The only thing worse than TK not remembering who he is would be TK not remembering him and Nolan being stranded after he’s rejected. Not that he will be. There’s no universe where they’re enemies. Nolan absolutely refuses to even entertain the idea. But just in case—

He nods reluctantly, braced for Sid to tease him, or maybe to mock him. Here he is claiming to be a Flyer, and he’s accepting help from the enemy. He’s talking to  _ Sidney fucking Crosby, _ the bogeyman of every hockey fan in Philadelphia, as if he’s an actual person and not a demon sent from hell specifically to spite the Flyers. Of all the fucked up things that have happened over the past twelve hours, Nolan thinks that might be the weirdest part.

“I’ll pick you up for practice,” Sid says, and that’s it. He goes back to the kitchen, presumably to collect Geno. Sure enough, when he reappears, Geno is trailing behind him, looking somewhat more awake. “Get some rest,” Sid tells Nolan. 

When they leave, Nolan goes back up to the bedroom. He has absolutely no intention of actually doing what Sid told him to do, but he sits on the bed for a minute. He was telling the truth—his head doesn’t hurt as much but he’s more tired than he should be. Head injuries are the fucking  _ worst. _

He lies down, burrowing into the soft pillows. Maybe he’ll just close his eyes for five minutes. Sid doesn’t have to know.

He’s woken by pounding on the door and jerks upright, nearly overbalancing. A glance at the clock confirms he’s been asleep for three hours.  _ Fuck. _

Yawning, he stumbles down the stairs and pushes the door open to reveal an unimpressed Sid.

“I said rest, not sleep through your alarm and me calling you five times,” he says. “Five minutes or I’m leaving and you can call an Uber.”

Nolan resists the urge to flip him off and turns to look for his shoes. He’s ready in three minutes, making Sid press his lips together and say  _ “hmm”, _ somehow sounding both irritated and impressed at the same time. Nolan very much wants to flip him off again. Somehow he resists.

They don’t talk on the way to the rink, which Nolan is grateful for. Not that he’d admit it. Until they get to the parking lot and Sid puts the car in park and turns to look at Nolan, who suddenly has to resist the urge to fidget.

“I’m assuming, judging from the  _ fuck you _ attitude radiating off you, that you’re still… where you were last night?”

Nolan doesn’t answer, just shrugs.

“Fine.” Sid sounds faintly annoyed but mostly resigned. “In that case, follow my lead.” He gets out of the car and Nolan has to scramble to catch up with him as he heads into the building.

There are a bunch of players in yellow and black on the ice. A few call greetings, and one skates their way as Sid raises a hand in response.

“Hey Patty! How ya feeling?” It’s Jake Guentzel, grinning madly as his blond curls wisp out from under his helmet.

Nolan resists the knee-jerk snarl. “Fine,” he says curtly.

Apparently he has a reputation for being a giant bitch here too, because Jake doesn’t look the least bit fazed. If anything, his smile widens. He tosses a hand in goodbye and skates away as Sid motions for Nolan to follow him.

“Guentzy’s probably your closest friend on the team,” Sid says in a low voice, and Nolan nearly trips over his feet.

“He’s what?  _ Him?” _

Sid’s eyebrows arch again. “Don’t be rude,” he says mildly. “He’s a good kid. You’ve been friends almost since you got here.”

Nolan can’t believe it.  _ Won’t _ believe it. Friends with  _ Jake Guentzel, _ in a universe where he and TK apparently hate each other? There’s only so far his credulity will stretch, and this is apparently it.

“He’s a whiny bitch,” he mutters, and Sid wheels on him, suddenly so angry that Nolan takes a quick step back.

“Don’t you  _ ever _ say that again,” Sid hisses. “Jake’s been a friend to you when you haven’t deserved his friendship. He’s been there for you when you’ve been a huge asshole for absolutely no reason, just because you have a nasty habit of lashing out when you’re worried about something. You drive everyone away, but not Jake. He’s stayed, when  _ I  _ would have left your grumpy ass to rot. So maybe you don’t remember who you are, but at the  _ very fucking least, _ you will treat that man with respect. Are we clear?” His eyes are burning with fury, and Nolan swallows against the shame.

He ducks his head. “Clear,” he mumbles. He keeps the apology locked behind his teeth somehow, and after a minute Sid sighs and turns away.

He leaves Nolan with the trainers, holding a quick conversation with them that Nolan can’t overhear and then leaving without even a glance in Nolan’s direction. Nolan’s fine with that. He doesn’t care if he’s disappointed Sidney Crosby. In fact, if he has, then he’s doing something right and upholding the Flyers’ legacy. He tells himself that several times as he’s directed to lie down on the table.

The next hour is spent being poked and prodded, bright lights shone in his eyes, his blood pressure taken, and far too many invasive questions asked.

Nolan grits his teeth and does as directed. He’s finally released just as Sid comes back to collect him, and Nolan has to wait none-too-patiently for the trainers to tell Sid the results, which can be summed up as ‘no practice today but he can play tomorrow as long as the headache doesn’t come back.’

In the hall, Nolan hunches his shoulders, ready to be yelled at some more.

“I’ve been thinking,” Sid says instead. “If you really think you’re a Flyer, you’ll—”

“I don’t  _ think _ I am, I  _ know _ I am,” Nolan snaps.

Sid gives him a level look and Nolan folds his arms, swallowing the instinctive apology.

“As I was saying,” Sid continues, “you’ll want to keep that information to yourself. It would be bad enough if you thought you were a Cap, but a Flyer?” He shakes his head. “Unless you  _ want _ to be shoved under a microscope and possibly put through psychiatric testing?”

Nolan grimaces.

“Didn’t think so. So you’ll keep your mouth shut. That won’t be hard for you, will it?”

Nolan glares at him and Sid’s lips twitch. 

“I’ll do what I can to help,” he continues, turning to lead the way back through the halls toward, Nolan presumes, the locker room. 

“Why?” Nolan asks.

“Because you’re a good center and I don’t want to lose you for however long it takes them to decide you’re not looney tunes,” Sid says, shoving his hands into his pockets as he walks.

“But it’s not because you believe me.” Nolan’s not sure why he’s pushing, or why it matters to him that Sid believes him.

Sid stops, turns to him. His eyes are very dark in the poorly lit hallway. “It’s not possible,” he says gently. “Nolan, come on, there’s no explanation that would make it make sense. How would it even work? Alternate realities? Body swapping? Is there a Nolan Patrick back in ‘your’ world who wakes up on the Flyers when he was drafted by the Pens?”

Nolan’s mouth goes dry. He hadn’t even considered that.

Sid’s eyebrows notch up. “Look, even if that’s the case, there’s nothing you can do about that. So just keep your head down, play hockey with us, and maybe things will make sense again soon.”

“You mean maybe the delusion will go away,” Nolan mutters.

“Potato, po-tah-to,” Sid says, and swings away to start walking again. 

Nolan grumbles but hurries to keep up.

“Actually, you should go home and rest,” Sid says. “Maybe watch some recent In the Room videos if it won’t hurt your head, get a feel for us so you can at least pass for a Penguin.”

Bed, even if it’s not  _ his _ bed, does sound inviting. 

“Call a car,” Sid says over his shoulder. “You know where the exit is?”

Nolan has absolutely no idea where he is and he’d die before admitting that. He makes a noise that apparently satisfies Sid, and he strides away, leaving Nolan to find his way out of hell on his own. 

He does, eventually, and curls up in bed with a laptop he found on the coffee table. The thought of watching Pens videos makes him want to throw something but it’s not actually a bad idea, so he goes to the NHL’s website and clicks on one at random.

He watches videos all afternoon, and by evening, he’s reasonably sure he can pass for a Penguin, at least at first glance. He knows Geno hates talking to reporters, that Bryan Rust comes up with ridiculous nicknames for his teammates that Nolan absolutely doesn’t find endearing, and that Jared McCann kisses his goalie’s helmet, before and sometimes after a game.

As long as Nolan’s not quizzed, he should be able to pass. He hasn’t forgotten how to play hockey, at least—he sits bolt upright, computer sliding off his lap unnoticed.  _ He’s going to have to play hockey for the Penguins. _ As in, he’s going to have to help them  _ win games. _ On the list of Things He’d Rather Not Do, that ranks right up there with making out with Zdeno Chara.

Nolan slumps back to the bed, groaning. He doesn’t even have anyone to  _ talk _ to about this. The only one who knows is Sid, and he’d probably be a little offended and not at all sympathetic. Nolan rolls over and buries his face in the pillows. At least tomorrow he’ll be able to talk to Nico. And then Friday, he’ll see TK, and TK will  _ know _ him, and Nolan’s world will go back to normal. Back to the way it  _ should _ be.


	3. Chapter 3

His first sign that something is wrong is when Nico won’t look at him during warmups. Nolan tries several times to catch his attention, getting close to the blue line and stretching in Nico’s eyeline, but it’s like he doesn’t exist. Nico’s gaze flicks past him like Nolan’s not even there, and something squirms in Nolan’s belly.

He finishes warming up, takes shots on Jarry with the rest of the team, and allows Jake to jostle him as they head back to the bench.

“Gonna be a good game!” Jake says, beaming, and Nolan wonders sourly if he smiles when he sleeps. He just grunts but that’s apparently enough, thankfully. Jake peels off to talk to Tanev about something and Nolan looks for Sid. He’s on the bench talking to Sullivan—Sully. Nolan sidles up as well as he can, being 6’3 and wearing skates, and Sid gives him a mildly curious look. Nolan glances at Sully, who’s already turned to talk to one of the assistant coaches, and leans in so he doesn’t have to shout.

“Are Nico and I friends in this universe?”

Something flickers across Sid’s face. Sorrow? It’s there and gone so fast Nolan’s sure he’s imagining it.

“Not since you broke up with him last year,” Sid says, and for the second time in three days, Nolan’s world screeches to a halt.

Sid takes one look at his face and swears under his breath, grabbing Nolan’s arm and hustling him down the tunnel. Nolan lets it happen, too stunned to fight. There’s a dull roaring in his ears and he can’t hear whatever Sid’s saying. He bends at the waist, struggling for air, and feels Sid step in close, one hand between his shoulder blades.

This can’t be happening. He can’t take many more emotional bombs like this. He doesn’t even know where to  _ start. _ He’s  _ out _ in this world? He and Nico were  _ together _ at one point? Sure, he’d thought about it when they’d met at the draft back in Nolan’s actual world—the  _ real _ world, the one where everything makes sense—but he’d never acted on it, of course he hadn’t. 

“Who else knows?” he manages to choke out after a few minutes.

“The team, of course,” Sid says quietly.

_ Of course. _ Nolan wants to throw up. Sid grips his shoulder.

“Nolan, look at me,” he says, and that’s his captain voice. Nolan may not be a Penguin but it would take a stronger man than him to defy  _ that _ voice. He manages to lift his head and meet Sid’s eyes. “It’s part of who you are,” Sid says, holding his gaze. “Nothing to be ashamed of.”

Nolan wrenches away at that. “I’m  _ not,” _ he hisses, folding his arms over his stomach.

“Really,” Sid says flatly. “Because you’re acting pretty fucking panicky at the idea of people knowing you’re gay.”

“It’s not—” Nolan swallows, fumbling for words. “That’s just not—” He stops again. He doesn’t know how to explain it, but Sid’s glancing back toward the arena. Maybe he won’t  _ have _ to explain it.

“We have a game to play,” Sid says when he turns back to him. “Can you do this?”

Nolan rolls his head, loosening his shoulders. “Yeah,” he says. “I can do this.”

“You’re sure,” Sid presses. “Because I’d rather bench you right now than have you lose us the game because you’re too fucked up to focus.”

Nolan glares at him. “I’m sure,” he says through his teeth.

“Hm,” Sid says, pursing his mouth, and Nolan’s definitely going to punch him for that, sooner rather than later, but right now Sid’s turning to head back toward the ice, and Nolan has no choice but to follow.

He’s centering Evan Rodrigues and Brandon Tanev, and he hates the way muscle memory takes over almost instantly. Both of them are able to read him like a book somehow, and Nolan finds the puck on his stick nearly every time he’s free. They don’t score immediately, but everything feels  _ right _ in a way that’s almost unsettling. He’s used to Lindy and TK, but this combination is nearly as good, and  _ that _ thought makes him feel guilty. He’s not cheating on his lineys, he tells himself between shifts, watching the action and running through his own moves as he rests. Just because he can play with these two doesn’t  _ mean _ anything.

He gets an assist in the third period, sliding the puck between Nico’s feet to Rodrigues, who tips it home under Blackwood’s elbow. Turns out scoring feels just as good as a Penguin. Nolan’s grinning fiercely when he collides with his line to celebrate, but the smile slips when he sees Nico skating for his bench, shoulders set.

They win by two and Nolan joins the line to acknowledge Jarry. Tristan’s smile is wide and sweet, and Nolan smiles back at him reflexively, bending to tap their helmets together before skating for the bench. Sid is waiting by the door, and his eyes are warm when Nolan reaches him.

“Good job,” he says, and Nolan ducks his head, cheeks suddenly hot. 

The Devils have already left the ice, heading down the tunnel toward their locker room, and Nolan wants desperately to go after them, to talk to Nico, to find out what  _ happened _ between them, but Sid shakes his head when Nolan glances back at him.

“Bad idea,” he says quietly.

Nolan scowls but stomps down the tunnel toward their own locker room. He  _ will _ talk to Nico, even if he has to drive to New Jersey to do it. Underneath the determination is a snaking fear that winds its way around his ribs, though, squeezing until it’s hard to breathe. He can’t have lost TK  _ and _ Nico both. Surely the universe wouldn’t be that cruel. 

He makes it through cooldowns and the media scrums on autopilot. The reporters don’t try to get too much out of him; they ask the usual stock questions and he gives the usual stock answers, doing his best to look bored with everything.

When he’s finally free, he sees Sid heading for him and he promptly ducks out the nearest door. He makes a break for it immediately, even though running in flip-flops is awkward, and only has to double-back twice when he takes a wrong turn. Thankfully, Sid seems to have decided not to pursue him, and Nolan is left to find the visitors’ dressing room in peace.

Most of the players are gone when he gets there. He gets a sharp look from PK Subban, who’s in the middle of pulling his jacket on.

“Help you?” Subban says.

“Looking for Nico,” Nolan manages, and Subban’s mouth tightens.

“So you can hurt him some more?” His tone is caustic, and Nolan gapes at him.

“Does  _ everyone _ know?” he blurts, and wants to sink through the floor.

Subban rolls his eyes. “Like either of you could hide jackshit.”

Nico appears then, faltering mid-step when he sees Nolan. 

“And I’m out,” Subban announces, brushing by Nolan, who shifts his weight, feeling suddenly idiotic in his track pants and flip-flops. 

“Hi,” he offers.

Nico’s eyes are cold. “What do you want?”

Nolan clears his throat. “I—I just wanted to say hey.”

He’s always liked Nico’s eyebrows, how thick they are, how they slash straight across his forehead and make his already striking eyes even more intense. Right now they’re slammed together, though, and Nico’s eyes are stormy.

This was a mistake. But it’s too late to back out now, so Nolan soldiers on.

“Listen, I’m… I miss you.”

Nico’s eyebrows go straight up at that.

“I mean we were friends once, right?” Nolan hurries on. “I just—I wanted—” 

“You got lonely?” Nico says, and his voice is brittle with suppressed fury. “You remembered the good times? Or did you change your mind about whoever you’re fucking now? Maybe he changed  _ his _ mind, had enough of you.” He spits the words like they’re venom and Nolan flinches, stumbling back a step.

“What did I  _ do?” _ he asks, unable to help himself, desperate to  _ know. _

Nico’s mouth falls open. “What did you—”

Sid shoves the door wide and Nolan’s never been happier to see a Penguin in his life. 

“With me, now,” Sid says flatly, and Nolan should probably be embarrassed at how quickly he obeys. 

He takes one last look at Nico before the doors swing shut. Nico hasn’t moved, fists clenched and shoulders tight, but—Nolan’s stomach swoops as the doors close and cut off his view, as Sid curls a big hand around Nolan’s bicep and marches him down the hall. 

There had been tears on Nico’s face. He’d been crying.  _ Nolan  _ had made him cry. 

He digs his heels in, suddenly desperate to go back, to  _ fix _ it, whatever ‘it’ is, to apologize even though he doesn’t have the faintest fucking clue what he’s done. 

“Absolutely not,” Sid snaps, and he’s four inches shorter than Nolan, he shouldn’t be able to haul him along like this with such insulting fucking ease, but it’s like arguing with a landslide. 

“I need—” Nolan’s vision is blurry and he rubs hard at his eyes with his free hand. 

Sid notices because of course he does, and he stops there in the hallway, the noises of the arena echoing around them. 

“I’m taking you home,” Sid says, no room for argument in his voice, but his eyes are soft. Warm with something like sympathy that makes Nolan want to lash out, knock that look off his face. 

He doesn’t move. “Will you tell me—what happened?”

Sid is still for a moment but then he sighs and nods. “As much as I know. Jake probably knows more than I do.”

The thought of having to talk to Jake, impossibly sunny, friendly, happy Jake, makes Nolan want to scream. He shakes his head hard and Sid somehow gets it. 

“Come on,” he says. “You need to eat.”

Sharing burgers in a quiet parking lot with Sidney Crosby seems to be becoming a thing. 

Nolan eats mechanically, still unable to stop seeing the tears on Nico’s face, and Sid waits until he’s done before he speaks. 

“You met at the draft. You were close from the beginning. I think he was shy because of the language barrier, and it’s not like you ever willingly string three words together outside of Winnipeg.”

Some things remain the same, Nolan notes distantly. 

“I’m not sure when it went from friendship to dating. It was a while. And of course you didn’t say anything at first—it wasn’t until Zach caught you two in a hallway before a game that we even knew anything was up.” 

Nolan’s cheeks burn and he hunches his shoulders.

“Oh, you weren’t  _ doing _ anything,” Sid says hastily, and that just makes Nolan’s cheeks flame hotter. He slides down in his seat, willing himself to invisibility. “But after that, yeah… we knew. We were all happy for you. Nico was good for you. Made you smile.”

“Then why—”

Sid lifts a shoulder. “You wouldn’t talk about it. We were in Jersey for a game, and afterward, you went to see him. You came back looking—” He hesitates. “I’d never seen you that devastated before. But you refused to say anything, you wouldn’t let us say his name. It was like he’d never existed.”

No TK and no Nico. Nolan doesn’t have  _ anyone _ anymore.

“That’s not true,” Sid says sharply, and Nolan twitches. He hadn’t meant to say that out loud. Sid’s continuing. “You have us, Nolan. You have the team. You have Jake, you have  _ me.” _

“Why, though?” Nolan whispers. “I’ve been nothing but a dick to you.”

“So? You’re always a dick. Nothing’s changed there.”

“Then  _ why?” _ Nolan insists, the frustration and confusion and  _ fury _ at his situation all brimming over at once as he jolts upright again and jerks to face Sid. “Why the  _ fuck _ are you helping me, why are you being nice to me if I’m such a fucking dick, if I drove  _ Nico _ away,  _ fuck _ he’s the sweetest guy I  _ know—” _ He cuts himself off, rubbing his face with shaking hands as tears sting his eyes. 

Sid’s voice is unbearably gentle. “Because you’re family, Pat.”

“But—”

“No. Whatever you’re going to say, don’t. You’re a snarly bitch, sure. But that’s not everything to you. You’re also loyal to the bone, you’d die for anyone on this team. You don’t give allegiance easily but once you do it’s there for life. No one in the room takes your moods as anything but you being… you. We know it’s not personal.”

Nolan doesn’t have TK. He definitely doesn’t have Nico. And he’s gone from moody to outright raging asshole, apparently. He looks up. “I’m not,” he says.

Sid blinks but doesn’t say anything.

“I’m—I’m not a—I’m not like that.” Not for the first time, Nolan curses his inability to find the right words. “I don’t like—attention. And I get, I don’t know, bitchy when people are stupid.”

Sid makes a wryly amused face.

“But I’m  _ not _ a complete asshole, I wouldn’t—Nico said I drove him away—Nico’s my friend, one of my  _ best _ friends, I would  _ never—” _

Sid lifts a shoulder. “I don’t know what to tell you. All I know is what the Nolan Patrick  _ I _ know is like. You’re a great guy, really. Funny and patient with kids and a hell of a hockey player. Yeah, you can be really shitty when something’s upset you. But you’ve been like that from the beginning, ever since I met you. Doesn’t change anything.” He starts the car again. “Do you want me to stay with you tonight?”

Nolan is briefly tempted, and somewhat horrified by that realization. But he shakes his head. “No. I—no.” He hesitates. “Thank you.”

Sid touches his knee, an absent, affectionate gesture as he pulls out of the parking lot. “We’ll figure it out.”

Alone in his too-big house, Nolan wanders aimlessly from room to room, looking at the contents of his life. He’s not the type to keep a diary, unfortunately. He looks at the pictures on the walls, the framed newspaper clippings, the story of a life not his. He feels unmoored, adrift in an ocean that wants to drown him, and there’s  _ no one _ he can turn to.

Except himself.

Even as he has the thought, he’s rolling his eyes at how ridiculous it is, but that doesn’t stop him from reaching for the laptop. He pulls up a note application and then stares at the screen for a long time.

_ Dear me, _ he types, and promptly deletes it to start over.

_ If you’re reading this, then maybe I’m not going crazy. Until a few days ago, I was a Flyer, but I hit my head during a game, and when I woke up, I was a Penguin. Sid tells me I was drafted by them, that I’ve always played here. None of this makes any  _ sense.  _ Are you in my world? Did you wake up with G as your captain and TK your liney? I’ll bet TK was right by the bed, looking all worried and puppy-eyed like he gets. _

_ Sid went to the hospital with me, stayed the night to make sure I was okay. He’s being a good captain, and I want to hate him, I want to resent him for being here, but he’s actually been… really nice.  _

Nolan stares at the wall, eyes unfocused.  _ What are you like? This version of me. Us. Fuck, I don’t know what to call it. You seem… harder, somehow. Like you’re angry. At something or someone? I don’t know. But Sid—god, I can’t believe I talk to Sid like he’s a normal person. Sid says I’m a bitch. And like. I don’t like  _ people, _ that part’s true. And the Philly media sucks ass on a good day. But I have friends. People I love. My sisters, my parents. My teammates are mostly pretty great. As long as the media leaves me alone, things are fine. _

_ It’s looking like our lives—life? Fuck if I know. Diverged around draft day. I went to the Flyers, but you went to the Pens somehow. Still don’t understand that. Does that mean the Flyers won the Cup in 2017? _

_ Everyone on the team—MY team, the Flyers—is great, really. Carter’s weird as fuck but what else is new? Speaking of goalies, Jarry’s a nice kid. Not a patch on Hartsy, obviously, but he’s alright.  _

_ Hayes is loud and obnoxious and you’re gonna hate him at first but he has the biggest heart on the team. When we’re separated for more than a day, he goes around the room to tell everyone how much he missed them, in order. He’s like the world’s biggest toddler. He let me live with him for a while, and dragged me to his parents’ place for Christmas one year. He and Gritty have some weird thing going on—don’t question it. _

_ Lindy’s the sweetest kid on the team. He’s been through some shit but he didn’t let it beat him.  _

_ G… good luck with him. He’s a competitive fuck, don’t ever beat him at anything unless you want to be challenged over and over again until he finally beats  _ you. _ But he’s a good captain. He takes care of us. _

_ And then there’s TK. Listen. Try not to be too hard on him, okay? I know he’s annoying and he never shuts up and god, his taste in music is embarrassing and he’s never met a camo pattern he didn’t love on sight but he’s also…  _ Nolan stops to consider. How to even begin to describe TK? 

_ He’s my best friend,  _ he types, and closes the computer. Tomorrow they’re going to Philly and Nolan’s going to see TK again, and everything will stop being so fucking  _ weird.  _


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay on this! Also, ah... heed the updated tags. Seriously.

Nolan has every intention of seeing TK before the game. He’s determined to stop this lunacy in its tracks before anything else happens. But then Jake can’t find his carry-on as they’re deplaning, starts insisting that he didn’t forget it, he _didn’t,_ it was _right here,_ and before Nolan can even protest, he’s roped into the search along with everyone else. 

They finally find it wedged under a seat on the far side of the plane and everyone tumbles out onto the tarmac, laughing and teasing Jake, who bears it with good grace, but then the bus breaks down halfway to the hotel and they’re stranded on the side of a busy Philly highway, cars whipping by at high speeds, making the bus chassis sway with the wind of their passing. 

Nolan keeps sneaking glances at the time. Maybe if he called an Uber… he could take it straight to TK’s apartment—assuming he lives in the same place in this world. And if he doesn’t?

He sinks lower in his seat as Teddy and Evan begin scuffling behind him, their knees hitting Nolan’s seat back repeatedly as they squirm and laugh breathlessly and Nolan wonders how this became his life. 

In the end, they barely make it to the stadium with time to change and warm up before the game. Nolan is twitchy and on edge the entire time, snapping at anyone who tries to talk to him. No one seems to even notice, though, and after he stretches, he stops to take a deep breath.

_It’ll be okay,_ he tells himself. _TK will know. This will be over soon._ He breathes, slow and even through his nose until the butterflies swarming in his stomach begin to subside, and when he lifts his head and sees Sid watching him, he’s able to summon a small, albeit unsteady, smile.

Sid’s dark eyebrows wing up, but his return smile is genuine.

They take the ice to a full house, and Nolan is swamped with a sudden, violent wave of homesickness when he sees the orange jerseys on the far side of the rink. _That’s_ where he belongs. He has to stop himself from lurching upright and making a beeline for them, demanding they recognize him, take him _back,_ make this nightmare stop.

Somehow Sid ends up next to him to stretch. He doesn’t say anything, but after a minute the nauseating surge begins to fade and Nolan is able to swallow hard and square his shoulders.

Sid rolls to his feet and leaves without even looking at him, but Nolan feels stronger, steadier. He’s still watching for TK though, trying to pick him out of the swirling mass of jerseys. _There._ He catches a glimpse of a pair of familiar shoulders, and his stomach lurches again. He could pick TK out of any lineup by just the way he holds himself when he skates, and that—that’s definitely TK.

Nolan is frozen, waiting for TK to see him. When he does, he’ll know him and this will be over. 

But no matter what Nolan is expecting, he’s _not_ expecting TK to catch his eye, look him up and down swiftly, and fucking _smirk_ at him.

He’s gone before Nolan can even react, grabbing a puck to go shoot on Moose, who’s fending off shots while Carter stretches, leaving Nolan shell-shocked on the ice.

He’d looked right at him. He’d _looked_ at him. And there’d been no recognition in his eyes. Nothing’s changed. His world is still on its head.

Somehow, Nolan makes it through the game. He doesn’t score—barely even touches the puck, and he has no idea what the score is when the final buzzer goes. TK hasn’t looked at him again. Thankfully, they’re on different lines and they never actually end up on the ice at the same time, unless Nolan is stepping off as TK is getting on.

He gets down the tunnel, the horribly familiar tunnel that feels and looks and _smells_ like home, and gets undressed and showered on autopilot. He’s dimly aware of Sid watching him with worried eyes, but he doesn’t say anything. 

When Nolan is dressed, he’s seized with the terrible urge to get the _fuck_ out of the arena, away from everything that’s so familiar even though it shouldn’t be, to hide somewhere and lick his wounds and try to make sense of everything. Maybe he _is_ going crazy. He grabs his phone and turns for the door, nearly running into Sid, who is of course standing right there.

“I’m gonna—bus,” Nolan says to Sid’s collarbone, and catches his nod in his peripheral vision before ducking around him and out the door. 

The hall is empty, thankfully, and at least _this_ arena he knows inside and out. He takes a back route, the one he and TK like to use when they’re trying to avoid the trainers. Once, TK had dragged him up into the crawl spaces in the ceiling and they’d sat on a rafter and eaten ice cream together, kicking their legs over the empty rink below them. 

Nolan’s throat is dangerously tight, eyes prickling again. His vision is blurry, and he knows he’s about to cry but he can’t stop the tears gathering in the corners of his eyes. He catches sight of a door and shoves it open, slipping through and closing it soundlessly, then leaning back and closing his eyes, taking several deep breaths.

“Took you long enough.” The voice is careless, amused, and Nolan would know it anywhere. 

His eyes shoot open. TK’s resting a hip against the table, arms crossed, snapback shoved on backwards over his messy hair. He’s watching Nolan, one eyebrow raised as if he’s expecting him to say something.

Nolan flounders. 

TK rolls his eyes and pushes away from the table, closing the distance between them in three quick steps. He barely reaches Nolan’s chin, but there’s absolutely no question who’s in control when he reaches up and hauls Nolan down into a hard, bruising kiss.

Nolan’s brain bluescreens. TK is biting and licking roughly, demanding entry, his hands tight and insistent in Nolan’s hair. Nolan has no idea what to think, what to do, where to put his own hands. They hover helplessly somewhere around TK’s waist, not quite touching, as TK devours his mouth. He bites down and pain blooms bright in Nolan’s lip. He jerks his head back, colliding with the door, and TK laughs at him, blood on his mouth and a wild look in his eyes.

“Travis—” Nolan touches his lip, fingers coming away red. He gropes for words. He has to say something, he knows that, but he can’t remember _words._ “What—”

“Shut the fuck up, Patrick,” TK says. “Can’t believe you wimped out on me in Pittsburgh. No fucking way I hit you that hard.”

_This isn’t his TK._ Nolan has the thought even as TK kisses him again, just as hungry and demanding, pressing Nolan hard against the door. This TK is harder, angrier. There’s an edge to his words, a look in his eyes that dares Nolan to argue, to say something, to push so he can push back.

Nolan should stop him. He knows that, just like he knows he’s not going to. He’s wanted to know what TK tastes like, feels like, for too long. Even if this isn’t _his_ TK, it’s still a version of him, and that’s enough for Nolan. If he can’t have _his_ TK, maybe he can at least have this.

Travis grunts when Nolan hooks a leg around the back of his knee and takes them both to the floor. They land with a thud, Nolan getting a hand under Travis’s head just in time to cushion it. He’s on him before Travis can react, initiating the kiss this time as Travis bucks and squirms under him, but not like he’s trying to get away. More like he just can’t stop himself, and that, at least, is still the same, and it shouldn’t make Nolan want to cry again.

He grabs Travis’s wrists, pins them to the thin carpet. “Be _still,”_ he snaps.

Travis writhes, a knee coming up and colliding with Nolan’s thigh, dangerously close to his balls. “Fuckin’ make me,” he spits.

Nolan’s blood surges. He folds both Travis’s wrists into one hand, pressing them into the floor so hard he can feel the bones shifting. Travis’s eyes go darker and he pulls, but not like he means it as Nolan reaches between them with his other hand to drag his shirt up. It’s awkward, trying to push his pants down one-handed, especially because Travis clearly has absolutely no intention of helping. He bucks against Nolan’s grip, mouth open, his breath coming sharp and fast, as Nolan wrestles with his waistband, swearing to himself.

“Gonna do something or bore me to death?” Travis taunts, and Nolan meets his eyes, irritated. Travis grins at him, rolling his hips up, and raises an eyebrow. “Sometime this century, eh?”

Nolan hisses and lets go. Travis’s brows slam together and he opens his mouth to protest, but Nolan moves before he can, flipping him over onto his stomach and planting a knee in his back. He’s not shy about using his weight to pin him there as Travis makes a shocked noise. Nolan uses the brief moment to grab one of his arms and drag it behind him, twisting it to press his wrist up near his shoulder blade. He can feel the bumps of Travis’s spine through his shirt, every shuddering breath he drags in. His face is pressed to the rough carpet, and it can’t be comfortable, but he doesn’t complain. _That has to be a first,_ Nolan thinks, and drags Travis’s pants down one-handed. It’s still not easy, but he wrestles them down to his thighs, then somehow off, knocking his shoes off so he can yank them over his feet.

Then he straddles Travis’s hips, holding him down with his weight, and hesitates. “Don’t move,” he warns, and lets go of his wrist just long enough to clumsily fold the soft sweatpants. Need makes his hands shake, desire thrumming through his blood. What is he _doing?_ He sits up on his knees and tugs on Travis’s hip, rolling him onto his side just enough to shove the folded pants under his hips. Travis stares up at him, eyes huge, lips red like he’s been chewing on them. His cock is so hard it must hurt, but he doesn’t make a noise as Nolan pushes him back onto his stomach, face against the rough carpet again.

Nolan leans down, puts his mouth to Travis’s ear. “You want to stop, you just say so,” he says, low and quiet, and Travis bucks.

“Don’t fucking _patronize_ me,” he spits, suddenly struggling furiously, and it takes all of Nolan’s strength to keep him in place, knees digging into Travis’s ribs so hard it has to be painful, but Travis doesn’t say anything else, just writhes and kicks his feet fruitlessly. His face is flushed bright red, the one eye Nolan can see bright with anger and want that Nolan is feeling too. 

He rides out the struggles until Travis sags against the carpet again, ribs heaving. Nolan pushes his shirt up and admires his back, satin skin over ropy muscle that Nolan desperately wants to bite. He wants to put his mouth, his hands, everywhere, so badly he doesn’t even know where to begin.

“C’mon,” Travis rasps. His hips hitch as if he doesn’t realize he’s doing it. “Are you gonna fuck me?”

The thought makes heat flash through Nolan, searing his nerves. _God,_ how he wants to. Wants to sink into the heat of Travis’s body, feel him clutching around him, the noises he’d make as Nolan fucked him. 

“No,” he says out loud, mostly for the way Travis tries and fails to stifle the disappointed noise. Nolan resettles himself, unable to resist grinding down briefly against the swell of Travis’s ass as he grabs his wrist and twists his arm up behind his back again. “You really like being fucked dry?” he continues. “Seems like it would hurt.”

Travis opens and closes his mouth. His wrist strains in Nolan’s grip, muscles bunching and flexing in his bicep. Nolan fumbles with his pants with his other hand, somehow managing to get them down far enough to pull himself out. His fist closing around his cock makes him groan, and Travis squirms again, shifting to crane over his shoulder at what Nolan is doing.

“Stop _moving,”_ Nolan snaps, and smacks Travis’s ass. It’s not gentle, and it makes another desperate noise jolt from Travis’s throat as the handprint blooms against his pale skin. 

Nolan lets go of his wrist and grabs his hair, hauling his head back. It bares his neck, a tantalizing curve Nolan wants desperately to mark, to cover in bruises until there’s absolutely no doubt who Travis belongs to.

Travis’s eyes are closed, he realizes, his body gone limp under him. Alarmed, Nolan starts to lift his weight, and Travis opens one eye to shoot him an impressive glare.

“Don’t. Fucking. _Stop,”_ he snarls, and Nolan resettles his weight, tightening his grip in Travis’s hair. He takes hold of himself again with his other hand, the pleasure shivering through him as he strokes.

“Fuck,” he mutters. Travis is almost completely still for the first time, his hips hitching in broken, helpless movements as if unaware he’s doing it. Nolan tips his head to the side and gets his mouth on Travis’s throat. He scrapes his teeth over the exposed tendon, and Travis shudders all over. Nolan sucks hard, pulling blood to the surface. Travis is trembling continuously now, rutting against the floor desperately.

Nolan can feel the orgasm gathering, a pressure in his chest like a band stretching farther and farther. He’s not sure how much longer he can hold on.

“I need—” Travis breaks off and moans when Nolan pulls his hair. “Please, I—” He’s trying to get a hand under himself, Nolan realizes, trying to jack off, and he tightens his grip.

“No,” he says. “You want to come, you do it like this. And then you’re gonna wear those filthy pants and walk out of here with my come all over your back and everyone who sees you is gonna know you got fucked and were begging for it, you—”

Travis’s entire body bows backward as he comes with a helpless sob, the force of his orgasm wracking his frame. Nolan can’t stop himself from following, letting go of Travis’s hair and catching himself on one hand as he comes and comes in endless waves, hot liquid spattering Travis’s back.

It lasts forever and nowhere near long enough before he sags and is finally able to catch his breath. He’s shaking from the force of it, from everything that just happened, every nerve in his body tingling.

Travis is facedown on the carpet again, utterly still. His eyes are closed and he looks almost peaceful, mouth in a soft but unsmiling line.

Horror slams into Nolan like a freight truck and he hurls himself backward, nearly falling as he scrambles to his feet. He tucks himself away with shaking hands, nausea and revulsion twisting his stomach into knots. What has he _done?_

Travis turns his head, his movements slow and dreamy like he’s underwater. “What—” he slurs, eyes still mostly closed.

Nolan shoves a hand through his hair and retreats. His hip collides with the doorknob but he barely notices it, eyes fixed on Travis’s still unmoving body.

“I have to—” Nolan stops, swallows. He grips the doorknob and pulls the door open just enough to get through, yanking it closed behind him. 

The bus is gone when he makes it to the parking lot, but he knows the hotel they’re staying in for their next game, and he calls a car, skin buzzing with adrenaline. 

Somehow he makes it to his room without being seen and goes directly to the shower. But no amount of hot water makes him feel clean, not when all he sees when he closes his eyes is Travis beneath him, _begging_ for him.

Finally he shuts off the water and stumbles, naked and still damp, to the bed. He’s still trembling, he realizes dimly, but he’s too exhausted to care. He curls up under the covers in the fetal position, tucking one hand under his cheek, and closes his eyes.

He has to wake up from this nightmare sooner or later. Maybe this time it’ll work. He falls asleep still thinking about the way Travis had kissed him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ... sorry 😬


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I live in Texas, and I figure the Hellstorm of 2021 is a pretty good reason for this chapter to be so slow to happen. My apologies for that, hopefully future chapters will be easier!

He’s woken by someone knocking on his door. Nolan pries his eyes open enough to see the clock—it’s not quite six a.m. He groans and rolls over, pulling the blankets up. After a minute, the knocking stops, and Nolan goes back to sleep.

He’s in the middle of a dream where he’s a Flyer again when his door opens and the light flicks on.

“Wake up,” Sid says in no uncertain terms, and Nolan drags the blankets over his head in response. He’s in absolutely no shape to face whatever Sid has in store for him.

He’s expecting it when Sid tries to pull the blankets off him, hanging on tight, but he’s not expecting Sid to be so freakishly strong. He wins the tug-of-war and rips the blankets off, dropping them on the floor as Nolan glares at him.

“What happened last night?” Sid asks.

Nolan sets his jaw and doesn’t answer.

“Okay, look,” Sid says, dropping into the chair beside the bed. “The old Nolan, the Nolan I know, the one I want back? He wouldn’t tell me either. He’d tell me to fuck off.”

“Fuck off,” Nolan immediately says, and Sid gives him a flat look.

“And you see where it got him,” he continues as if Nolan hadn’t spoken. “He fucked things up with Nico, broke his heart. Probably broke his own heart too. But he wouldn’t talk about it. Not even to Guentzy. I love my Nolan, I do. But he’s a closed off, unstable, emotionally constipated idiot who couldn’t identify a feeling if it bit him in the ass. So you—you need to do better. For _both_ your sakes, Nolan. Do better. Be a man, and talk to me.”

Nolan lies very still. Maybe if he doesn’t move, Sid will give up and go away. He almost laughs at the thought, even though there’s no humor in it, and finally rolls to a sitting position, drawing his knees to his chest. Sid watches him, concern in his eyes.

“I saw him,” Nolan mumbles to his knees.

“By him, you mean Konecny?”

Nolan moves his head in what a generous person might call a nod.

“Did you fight?”

Nolan laughs, bitter and sharp. “Fight. I fucking wish. I could have—if he’d punched me I could have _handled_ it.”

“What happened, Nolan?” 

Nolan puts his head on his knee. The words are stuck in his throat and he doesn’t think he can get them out.

“Did you have sex?”

Nolan lifts his head and looks at him. Sid looks back, eyes steady.

“I’m gonna take that as a yes,” he says when Nolan still doesn’t say anything. “And judging from the way you look right now, it didn’t go well.”

“Depends on your definition,” Nolan mutters. 

Sid just waits.

“Have you ever had hate-sex?” Nolan asks abruptly.

“Yes,” Sid says without hesitation.

Nolan stares at him, and Sid’s lips twitch.

“Weren’t expecting that, were you?”

“Who with?”

“This isn’t about me,” Sid says calmly. 

“It’s kind of about you,” Nolan insists. “Who was it?”

“I’m not going to tell you, so don’t waste your time asking,” Sid says. “We’re talking about your situation. So yes, I’ve had hate-sex. And it’s pretty incredible. Not very good for you, but it feels great in the moment.”

“Yeah.” Nolan puts his head back on his knee, thinking about the way Travis had felt under him, how he’d been so much like the TK Nolan knew, looked and smelled and _felt_ like TK, but it hadn’t been him. Not really. Not quite. “It was… rough. Like physically.”

There’s no judgment in Sid’s eyes as he waits, and that makes it easier for the story to fall out in fits and starts, disjointed and confused.

“I’ve never seen him so still, after,” Nolan whispers. “Like his brain was shut off. I didn’t know he could _be_ that still. I thought I hurt him at first but he looked _happy._ Or at least… peaceful.”

“What did you do?”

Nolan lifts a shoulder. “I left. I didn’t—it wasn’t _my_ TK. I didn’t know what to say. If there was anything _to_ say. He was out of it so I just… took off.”

“Hang on,” Sid says, straightening. “You left?”

“Yeah?”

“You held him down, put him under, made him come, and then _left him?”_ Sid looks _angry_ suddenly, storms gathering in his eyes, and Nolan sits up.

“I—what do you mean, put him under?”

Sid drops his head in his hands. “God give me strength,” he says, sounding despairing, and looks up again. “Nolan. You took him down. As in you put him in subspace.”

“I what?”

“He was _not_ in control of himself when you left. He needed you. He needed _someone,_ anyway, who could help him come back up safely. Being jerked out of that space is seriously hard on a person, and it’ll make the drop later so much fucking worse. Christ, I can’t believe—”

“I didn’t _know,”_ Nolan says, horror twisting his stomach. “I wouldn’t have—fuck, did I hurt him? Like _actually_ hurt him?” He wants to throw up suddenly. He presses the back of his hand to his mouth, staring at Sid, who shrugs helplessly.

“I wasn’t there, Patty, I don’t know. What I do know is that probably fucked him up pretty badly mentally, whether or not he realizes it himself. Which means you need to fix it. At least as best you can.”

“What do I do?” Nolan whispers.

“Go find him,” Sid says flatly. “He’ll probably be grumpy, he may lash out at you, push you away. He’s going to be off-balance for a while, until his body and mind level out again. He needs someone to remind him to eat, make sure he’s hydrated, and keep him from pushing himself into a collapse physically trying to fix things by working out.”

“You know a lot about this.”

“Maybe someday I’ll tell you about it,” Sid says, standing. “Get dressed. I’ll tell Sully you’re missing practice. Stay with Konecny all day. Don’t let him make you leave. He should skip practice too, take the day.”

“That’ll happen,” Nolan mutters. He rolls off the bed and drags on the first pair of pants he sees in his suitcase, shrugging into a shirt without looking at it.

“You say you know him,” Sid says, “you _make_ it happen. And Nolan.”

Nolan, shoving bare feet into shoes, glances over his shoulder. 

“No sex. _Especially_ like last night.”

“I won’t,” Nolan says, faintly offended. “I _wouldn’t.”_

“Intimacy is good, if he’ll let you. If he won’t, just stay with him.”

Nolan shoves his phone and wallet in his pocket, then hesitates. “What if—I know where he lives in _my_ world, but—”

“Pretty much everything else has been the same, hasn’t it?”

Nolan nods.

“Go there, then. If that’s not where he lives, we’ll figure it out. I’ll call the head office and pretend to be Giroux or something.”

Nolan opens his mouth to thank him and thinks better of it. He turns for the door instead and Sid follows him into the hallway.

“Be patient with him,” he says in a low voice. “If he’s dropping badly, he’s gonna make you on your worst day look like a walk in the park. Text me once you’re there.”

Nolan steps out on the sidewalk in front of the brownstone he knew as TK’s and swallows hard. He needs someone inside to buzz him in, and his chances of Travis being willing are nonexistent. An elderly woman is approaching. Nolan knows her, or at least he’s seen her before. She lives in the building, on the first floor, and sometimes she’d bring them pastries she’d made herself, small French delicacies light as air that would dissolve in Nolan’s mouth, leaving a lingering sweetness behind. 

She punches the code in, and Nolan jumps to hold the door open. She peers up at him, suspicious, and Nolan smiles at her, doing his best to seem winning and harmless.

“I’m a friend of Travis’s,” he offers.

“Never seen you before,” she says.

“He’s told me about the cookies you make him sometimes,” Nolan says, taking a gamble, and her face lights up.

“Does he like them, then?”

“He loves them,” Nolan says, and follows her into the building as she steps through, gesturing for him to follow.

“I’ll make you both some,” she tells him, pats his arm, and disappears into her apartment, leaving Nolan free to jog up the stairs.

He hesitates outside Travis’s door, kills a little time sending Sid a text confirming he’d gotten there, but finally squares up and knocks.

There’s no answer. Nolan waits, then knocks again. Still nothing. His stomach sinking, Nolan knocks harder. Was he okay? Had he even made it home after Nolan had left him like that?

The door is wrenched open, and not even Travis’s thunderous scowl stops the swoop of relief in Nolan’s stomach.

“What the fuck,” Travis says clearly, “are you doing here.” He doesn’t even wait for a response, just tries to slam the door closed, and Nolan gets his foot in the opening just in time. He yelps as it bounces off, then pushes the door wide as Travis takes a quick step back.

“I need to talk to you,” Nolan says.

Travis’s eyes are hard, harder than Nolan has ever seen them, and there are dark circles beneath them. He folds his arms over his chest. “You could have texted me.”

“No.” Nolan closes the door and faces him.

“Well, talk then,” Travis challenges. There’s anger in every line of his body, his bearing tightly closed off. “Then you can get the fuck out of here.”

“Yesterday—” Nolan hesitates. 

“Oh, back for round two, is that it?” Travis spins on his heel and stalks to the kitchen, Nolan trailing behind him. “Sorry to break your heart, but I’m not really in the mood right now,” Travis says over his shoulder as he pours himself a cup of coffee. “You wanna get your rocks off, you’ll have to go somewhere else.”

“Since when do you make your own coffee?” Nolan asks without his brain’s input.

Travis’s eyebrows shoot up. “Been doing it for years, pal. What’s it to you?”

TK never made his own coffee. They either went out and bought some, or more often, Nolan would make enough for both of them, bringing some to him every morning. TK would make pathetically grateful noises, grabbing blindly at the mug with his eyes still closed, and down half of it in one go. Nolan’s heart squeezes at the memory and he clears his throat.

Travis takes a very loud slurp, watching Nolan over the rim of the mug. “You just gonna stand there or are you gonna spit out whatever’s bothering you so I can go back to my day?”

“You don’t have anything planned,” Nolan says immediately, and Travis’s eyes narrow.

“I _could.”_

“How are you feeling?” Nolan asks.

“What is this, therapy?” Travis shoots back. “None of your fucking business is how I’m feeling.”

Of course he isn’t going to make this easy. Nolan sets his jaw and soldiers on.

“What we did yesterday, it—” He swallows. “I shouldn’t have just left like that.”

“Why the fuck not?” Travis looks honestly baffled. “This isn’t a relationship. And even if it was, what are you going to do, hold my fucking hand? Pet my hair?”

“If you needed me to,” Nolan says, and he knows he sounds too honest, too raw, but it’s too late to take the words back. They hang in the air between them and Travis stares at him, looking gobsmacked.

“Why?”

Nolan lifts a shoulder. “I don’t—look, I know you don’t like me or whatever. But… I guess I put you in a place, like, mentally, where you couldn’t really take care of yourself for a bit, and then I just ditched, and I—” He falters to a stop.

“I’m not a child,” Travis says through his teeth. “I can take care of myself just fine.”

“But you don’t _have_ to all the time,” Nolan says, desperate for Travis to understand. “I’m trying to tell you that I can. Help. Or whatever.”

Travis sighs, loud and noisy. “I don’t _need_ help. But I guess I can’t physically _make_ you leave, so whatever gets you off, man.” He stomps out of the kitchen, pointedly avoiding contact, and into his living room, where he collapses on the couch and puts his feet up on the coffee table. 

Nolan follows. “Have you eaten?”

Travis gives him an unreadable look. “Not hungry.”

“Have you had anything besides coffee?”

Travis hurls a pillow at him without looking. “Shut the fuck up if you’re going to be here. I don’t mind looking at you but I don’t wanna have to _listen_ to you.”

Nolan rolls his eyes and sits on the other end of the couch, pulling out his phone. He orders food while Travis flips through channels until finally settling on NatGeo with a satisfied noise.

When the driver arrives, Nolan buzzes him in.

“What the fuck?” Travis protests as Nolan accepts the food and closes the door. “Just making yourself at home, are you?”

“It’s not like you offered me anything,” Nolan shoots back, and immediately feels guilty. He’s supposed to be taking care of Travis, not antagonizing him. 

Travis isn’t fazed. “Because I didn’t _invite_ you. You just gonna sit there and stuff your face or did you get anything for me? Of course you didn’t, you don’t know what I like anyway.”

Silently, Nolan pulls out a massive stuffed burrito and sets it on the table in front of Travis, who stares at it suspiciously.

“It’s a burrito, not a bomb,” Nolan says, and ostentatiously ignores him in favor of unwrapping his own breakfast. 

It takes Travis a few more minutes to cautiously unwrap the burrito and prod at it as if maybe it does contain C-4. Nolan focuses on his food and pretends he doesn’t care if Travis eats it. 

Finally, Travis grunts in irritation and takes a big bite, chewing defiantly. Nolan doesn’t react, but after a few minutes he gets up and goes to pour them both more coffee. The mugs are exactly where they should be, and Travis scowls when he sets one down in front of him.

“You don’t know how I like it. I’m not drinking that.”

“Like I care,” Nolan says, and slings his feet up onto the coffee table. He watches the episode of Storage Wars that’s playing, well aware that Travis is sneaking glances at him from the corner of his eye. After a minute, Travis takes a sip, mutters something under his breath, and drains the mug. 

Nolan hides the triumph as another episode starts. He hasn’t seen this one, so he settles in to pay actual attention to the story as it unfolds.

Beside him, Travis crosses and uncrosses his ankles. Tucks his legs beneath him and almost immediately unfolds them. Plucks at a hole in the upholstery of the couch until stuffing is emerging. Crosses his ankles again. Sighs deeply. Squirms where he’s sitting. 

His eyes are on the screen but he hasn’t stopped moving yet. He picks at the loose threads on the couch cushion again, and Nolan moves without thinking, patience exhausted. He grabs Travis’s wrist and brackets it with his fingers.

“Stop it,” he says through his teeth.

Travis bristles. “Why should I?”

“Because I said so.”

That earns him a sneer. “Like I give a shit.” He jerks his wrist free and yanks a loose thread on the couch cushion, his expression daring Nolan to say something.

Nolan sets his jaw. “Knock it the _fuck_ off.”

“Make me.” There’s nothing but defiance in Travis’s tone, but when Nolan looks at him, something too much like hope is in his eyes.

Nolan lunges. He bears Travis over and they fall off the couch in a flurry of flailing limbs. Nolan lands on top of him, the air driven from Travis’s lungs in a forceful _whoosh,_ and there are a few minutes of breathless grappling as Nolan wrestles him around until Travis is face down on the rug with Nolan stretched on top of him, half under the coffee table as Travis’s ribs heave, the one eye Nolan can see ringed with white. He’s not struggling though, body gone utterly limp under Nolan’s. 

It’s uncomfortably close to what they’d done the night before, and Nolan starts to get up, but Travis makes a noise, a whine that’s a wordless plea, and clutches at Nolan’s wrist.

Nolan freezes and then lowers himself back down until he’s blanketing Travis’s body again. He can _feel_ the tension draining from Travis’s frame as he takes a deep breath and lets it out on a shuddering sigh.

“Is this… okay?” Nolan asks, tone hushed.

Travis’s eyes are closed, but he hums, deep in his chest. He’s still, truly still, for the first time since Nolan walked into the apartment, and for that reason alone, Nolan would have stayed where he is. He can feel the soft breaths Travis is taking, warm air puffing against the wrist Nolan has near his face. He only outweighs Travis by twenty-five pounds or so, and if he really wanted him gone, he could have made it obvious.

Instead his eyes are closed, cheek to the carpet, and his mouth is softer than Nolan’s ever seen it.

Nolan resettles himself until he’s as comfortable as he’s going to get. He’s molded to Travis’s back, cheek against his shoulder blade, and from where he is he can see the TV screen well enough, although he’s probably going to get a crick in his neck if he stays like this for too long. It takes him a while to find the thread of the conversation again, but he finally gets into it again.

Halfway through, he realizes Travis is asleep, breath slow and rhythmic. Nolan’s cheek itches. He rubs it against Travis’s shoulder blade, considering his options. On one hand, he doesn’t want to shatter the fragile peace Travis seems to have found. On the other, he really needs to take a piss, and sleeping on the hard floor, especially after what they’d done the night before, can’t be good for Travis.

A phone buzzes on the coffee table above him. Travis doesn’t even stir. Nolan reaches up and grabs it blindly. It’s Travis's phone, a text from Sanheim, and Nolan’s gut twists again. Sanny is his friend too, and Nolan wants desperately to talk to him, shoot the shit the way they used to.

He tries Travis’s birthday and unlocks the phone on the first try.

 _Where r u?_ _AV’s gna be pissed._

Travis still hasn’t moved.

 _Sorry,_ Nolan types, then erases it and tries again. _Sry. Not feeling great._

The typing bubble pops up immediately. _Sick?_

 _Just tired,_ Nolan sends. _Tell AV im fine. Cya tmrw._

He locks the phone and puts it back on the table. His neck twinges and he winces. Definitely time to relocate. He levers himself to his knees and Travis immediately makes a noise of protest, opening one eye and glaring blearily at him.

Nolan stands and heads for the bathroom without saying anything. When he comes back out, Travis has pushed himself to a sitting position. There’s a mesh pattern on his cheek from the rug and his hair is on end. He looks exhausted, the dark rings still under his eyes, and Nolan silently holds out a hand.

Travis narrows his eyes but after a minute he accepts the help and allows Nolan to propel him upright. Nolan herds him down the hall and into the bedroom, where he waits until Travis crawls under the covers. He’s not expecting him to scoot over far enough that there’s room for Nolan too, or the half-expectant, half-apprehensive glance he throws over his shoulder.

Nolan wavers briefly, and Travis’s face closes down. He rolls onto his side and pulls the blankets up, the silence deafening. Nolan moves before he can think better of it, lifting the blanket to slide beneath it. He ends up on his back, close but not quite touching. Travis’s shoulders are tense but after a minute, he adjusts his position, squirming in place as if to get comfortable. Nolan doesn’t miss that when he goes still again, he’s shifted backward a few inches until his spine is brushing Nolan’s wrist.

Neither of them say anything. There’s too much to say and nothing at all that would make sense. So Nolan lies there, listening to Travis’s breathing get slower and deeper as he falls asleep again, and after a while, he dozes off too.


End file.
